AMD Ryzen 5 3500 spotted: Six Cores but no SMT (updated)

#5704154 Posted on: 08/26/2019 08:23 AM

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Perfect for budget gaming but the 3600 is still best bang for the buck.

#5704155 Posted on: 08/26/2019 08:27 AM

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I feel its worth spending extra 50$ for 3600.

#5704187 Posted on: 08/26/2019 10:23 AM

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OEM will salivate over this:
6 core CPU for the price of 4 and better overall performance!!! Add some RGB and Bang! You are in the game.

#5704188 Posted on: 08/26/2019 10:28 AM

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Add some RGB and Bang!

This, it will run faster as well.

#5704192 Posted on: 08/26/2019 11:01 AM

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Seems that having SMT off gives more fps in a lot of games :p

#5704211 Posted on: 08/26/2019 12:14 PM

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At 150€ the 3500 would be a very interesting CPU even for gamers. Now if only AMD could release an 8 core part without SMT for 200€...

#5704225 Posted on: 08/26/2019 01:17 PM

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For anyone assembling his own computer, best stick with 3600 for gaming, productivity and longevity sake.
I'd get 3500 only if planing on upgrading to Ryzen 4000 and being on a tight budget to get other components.

#5704237 Posted on: 08/26/2019 01:51 PM

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For me, the best choice still is the 2600 for 120€~130€, at least until stocks last.

The 3600 don’t worth the extra money right now, paying ~60% more for ~15% performance!

#5704273 Posted on: 08/26/2019 02:50 PM

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I would think that when disabling SMT, that would give it a better chance of reaching higher boost clocks, like the 3600X.

In general, I find it a little odd AMD is still bothering to make SMT-less CPUs. I understand their approach involves more physical hardware than Intel's and therefore means that only half (or really, less than half) of a core is defective, but, if this product is a matter of binning, it seems so oddly specific that I have a hard time imagining how it is economically viable to sell, especially considering for a small price increase, you could double your thread count. So if you imagine the CPU die like this, where each core is a set of square brackets:

The Xs signify which half of the core has a physical defect. The 2 cores on the right are assumed to be perfectly fine. This would be a best-case scenario for AMD to sell a 6c/6t CPU where only 2 core halves are "needlessly" disabled. If AMD took an "all or nothing" approach, this would otherwise be a 2c/4t CPU, which obviously will sell for less money and has even more wasted silicon.
But, what's the probability of this happening? I would think a defect that large would typically reach far enough to cripple something important, like the L2/L3 cache or fetch and decode (each of which is shared between 2 threads of a single core), where the CPU might as well be 2c/4t anyway.
Meanwhile, let's say the defect was much smaller and looked more like this:

If AMD opts for 6c/6t, that means half of a perfectly functional CPU is needlessly crippled with 2 cores being totally disabled, even though all of them are at least partially working. In other words, more than half of that CPU is disabled to make this product, which doesn't sound all that profitable.
The only reason that particular scenario would make sense is if their 4c/8t models sell for less money (which they could). I assume they aren't going to make an 8c/8t model.

I'm all for reducing waste, but I'm just having a hard time understanding why AMD would put in the effort to make and market this CPU when it ostensibly isn't going to yield enough profits to be worthwhile. It's not like people were waiting for a CPU like this to exist from AMD.

#5704297 Posted on: 08/26/2019 03:59 PM

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I think it´s because the i5 9400F. Currently AMD have the R5 2600 on sale to clear stock, but this CPU will not last forever!

The 9400F is around 150€ in most stores. Unless AMD drop about 60€ on 3600 (which I don't see them doing, because it's a recently released CPU), they would end up with a big gap and give the sub 200€ market to Intel.

#5704311 Posted on: 08/26/2019 04:36 PM

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The lack of "hyper-threading" could definitely be a problem. The 7600 looked good on paper when it was released but today it's struggling with the low 1% in some of the newer games. Next gen consoles should be released by the end 2020 and are rumored to have 16 threads cpu. Consoles are always the lowest common denominator used to optimize games. This means that by around 2022 some companies should start to use the full power of next gen consoles which implies using more than 4-8 threads if they want to push those consoles to their limits. Not all games of course but the ones trying to sell by pushing the hardware to its limits should. I think it's definitely worth investing to get a 3600 since it has 12 threads.

#5704570 Posted on: 08/27/2019 10:56 AM

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I think it is fine as more budget oriented chip for about 150USD. Some people find it bit disappointing about lack of SMT, but since all chips have SMT enabled, I feel like AMD quickly realized they have bunch of chiplets which can't do SMT well, but otherwise work without it and they can't use them anywhere. So I believe this is merely here to improve yields. And while yes, it won't age as well, but it is budget chip. And for that price point it would either be 4 core 8 threads, if SMT was on or 6 core 6 thread with SMT off, which is what leaked. And between two, they would perform and age at about the same level. But with IPC improvements, it should still be nice alternative to replace R5 2600, if supplies run out. I mean at 150USD for CPU you are likely building 1080p 60FPS build and it should be fine for that.

#5704788 Posted on: 08/27/2019 08:45 PM

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And what if they will add some cool red strips on the his? It will be the fastest CPU ever!

#5704860 Posted on: 08/28/2019 02:33 AM

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6 3.6/7ghz cores for around 150/60 quid? Intel equivalent is the 9600k for a lot more.

#5704864 Posted on: 08/28/2019 03:13 AM

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9600k will kill this thing @gaming....same with an 8600k

When you lower the core count on ryzen it no longer shines.